Sand exclusion screen assemblies are employed in wellbores during the production of hydrocarbon fluids from subterranean formations. Conventional sand screen assemblies include a perforated base pipe, a drainage layer, a filter medium, and a protective jacket or shroud. Such screen assemblies are designed to filter out particles, such as formation sand or placed gravel/proppant, while facilitating the passage of hydrocarbon fluids into the wellbore. One drawback in the deployment of such screen assemblies is that the drainage layer, which is usually positioned between the filter medium and the base pipe, is that the large contact area between conventional drainage layers and the filter medium tends to generate flow resistance. In addition, the conventional drainage layers utilizing a wire-wrap configuration generally have flow blockage or channeling caused by the existence of spacer ribs. The flow resistance or blockage could result in an unwanted localized erosion failure of the sand control screen assembly. When erosion occurs, then particles are produced from the well, which is highly undesirable. Production of these particles can cause excessive erosion of production tubulars, downhole equipment and surface equipment, and lead to high maintenance costs and undesirable downtime of wells.
Accordingly, a need has arisen for a sand control screen assembly that is capable of filtering fines out of a production stream from a subterranean hydrocarbon bearing formation and that does not readily suffer from erosion.